[chimerax-users] How to display crystal packing?

[Guillaume Gaullier]

Hello,

Today I was trying to display a crystal packing from a PDB entry in ChimeraX, but could not find how to do this. I read the documentation for the sym command https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/sym.html ; but either I didn’t get it, or this is not the adequate command for what I am trying to do.

What I want to do is the equivalent of PyMOL’s "Action / generate / symmetry mates / +/- one unit cell and within… Å", which is different from the biological assembly the sym command can generate from the PDB annotation. When working with crystallographic data, ISOLDE displays molecules related to the working model by crystallographic symmetry, so displaying the crystal packing seems doable in ChimeraX. Or is it one of ISOLDE’s additions?

It would be wonderful if someone could help me with this (it is one of the last few things I need on a regular basis, that I still don’t know how to do in ChimeraX).

Thank you in advance,

Guillaume